Boxhill Research

Box Hill sits in the centre of the Melbourne Section and acts as a major activity hub for the eastern suburbs.

Primarily it acts as a converging place of culture and public transport with the Victorian government designating it as a future activity centre for Melbourne.

As a transport hub Box Hill links 20 different north-south bus routes with a east-west tram and train service that runs to the city.

Historically and even today Box Hill acts as a crucial entry-point for migration into Australia.

In the 1950s it accommodated large populations of European migrants and from the mid 80s until now this has transitioned towards Asia.

In 2011 20.4% of Box Hill residents were born in China and 32.5% had Chinese ancestry.

Noticeably most of the businesses in Box Hill Central are Chinese oriented with many international Chinese students choosing to live and work within the suburb.

Forecasts have noticed an outward migration trend which shows that many overseas migrants move to Box Hill first and after a few years once settled in, they move to suburbs further east of Box Hill where properties are larger and more affordable.

Forecasts also predict that residential development will peak in 2016 and stabilise from then on with household size falling in correlation to the increase in lone-person households.

This quantifies a need for affordable student housing.

Box Hill has a vast array of employment sectors with the four largest being retail, hospitality, health care/social assistance and scientific/technical.